What is Digital Trace Data?

Chris Bail
Duke University

website: https://www.chrisbail.net
github: https://github.com/cbail
Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chris_bail

 

[J]ust as the invention of the telescope revolutionized the study of the heavens, so too by rendering the unmeasurable measurable, the technological revolution in mobile, Web, and Internet communications has the potential to revolutionize our understanding of ourselves and how we interact … . [T]hree hundred years after Alexander Pope argued that the proper study of mankind should lie not in the heavens but in ourselves, we have finally found our telescope. Let the revolution begin.

—Duncan Watts (2011, p. 266)

WHAT IS DIGITAL TRACE DATA?

 

-Social Media Sites
-Web Search Data
-Blogs/Other Internet Forums
-Adminstrative Data on Websites
-Internet Archive -Digitization of Historical Texts/Archives -Audio-Visual Data

WHAT IS DIGITAL TRACE DATA?

WHAT IS DIGITAL TRACE DATA?

READYMADE DATA

READYMADE DATA

STRENGTHS VS. WEAKNESSES

BIG

ALWAYS ON

NON-REACTIVE

CAPTURES SOCIAL RELATIONSHIPS

WEAKNESSES OF NEW TEXT DATA

INCOMPLETE

INACCESSIBLE

NON-REPRESENTATIVE

DRIFTING

 

ALGORITHIMICALLY CONFOUNDED

UNSTRUCTURED

SENSITIVE

ELITE/PUBLICATION BIAS

POSITIVITY-BIAS

THE FUTURE OF DIGITAL TRACE DATA